A Blog About Stock Photography. John specializes in shooting stock photos including a mix of funny animal pictures with anthropomorphized pets (including dogs, cats, cows, elephants, monkeys and more), and concept stock photos for business and consumer communications. John's site includes interviews with photographers and leaders in the stock photo community as well as numerous articles on photography, digital imaging, and the stock photo business.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Hackers, Web Sites And Stock Photography

I've been hacked...and not for the first time either! Hey, maybe I should make cyber crime images!

I’ve Been Hacked!

Something weird happened on my website today. All of the file names on my site, all
6,000 plus of them, suddenly are the same: Hacked By Wosera. My webmaster (actually my twin brother)
spent a good number of hours trying to figure out how we were being hacked. We
have been hacked before several times and it has been a major pain in the butt.
At any rate, my brother is currently working on the problem. In the meantime,
thank god our hosting company backs our site up every day. Just an aside, cyber crime is going to be an increasingly important stock photo subject!

Hackers, Google “Tweaks” and Ground Zero

However, this latest little hiccup got me thinking. The
amount of time and effort that has gone into my web site I still find a bit
staggering. You put all of this work into something so important and in an
instant a hacker, a change in Google’s algorithm, who knows what…and its back
to ground zero!

Time, Resources And Good Returns

Don’t get me wrong, I still believe in getting one’s work up
on the net and building traffic. My efforts in doing that have certainly earned
me some good returns, but at this point the return on my Internet investment
could not possibly have matched what I would have earned if I had put all of
those time and resources into creating more images.

Selling Your Own Stock

That brings me to another point. I know that there are
photographers who do well selling their own stock. In my own case though, I can’t imagine trying to deal with
the volume of sales I get through agencies. There is simply no way I could negotiate,
track the rights, deliver the files and do all the other functions that the
agencies do for me. I wouldn’t have time to create images…heck, I might not
even have time to sleep! As it is,
if I didn’t have my twin brother working on my site almost for free I’d be
tearing my hair out…oh wait, I’m already bald!

Time, Resources And A Web Presence

I guess what I am trying to say is that I believe it is
important for stock photographers to have a web presence, but at the same time
it is really important to understand how your web site is going to work for
you, and how much of your time and resources are going to be needed to maintain
it. In my experience my web site, blogging, and social media require far more
time than I ever imagined. Heck, it even requires time and energy to try and
maintain a reasonable balance between my online efforts and my production of
stock photos.

Kicking Back On The Couch

Right now, however, I have to end this blog post and kick
back on the couch, watch a little mindless TV, and not think about stock
photography, facebook, twitter, tumblr or blogging.